The Life of a Raiding Feral Druid

Patch x.x

So I visited HERE and just watched the video (specifically the Q&A from the feral at 28:50) and the response from the crowd (and the Dev.) just sickened me.

Did I miss when Feral druids became Uber in PvP? Ferals in PvP won’t be able to put up a rip and turtle in bear and just watch you bleed to death anymore in MoP, That’s why we created the extra tree to split bear and cat talents out. Audience cheers? Really? WTF? I don’t remember Feral PvP ever being easy. I remember it being tolerable with ArP though still a pain in the arse as I was always expected to do things like cyclone and heal which fundamentally as a feral sucked. Even then they killed ArP. They took away our ability to shift out of snares. They took away the nice vial trinket proc (O.K., that was OP for more than just ferals). But when the hell was feral PvP put up a rip, go bear, I win? WTF? What crappy ass players are these ferals going up against?

Honestly, I don’t really have a strong stance for either keeping BearCat or losing BearCat. But tying that change due to PvP was just a WTF moment for me. For PvE I don’t this change is a big deal because most ferals are just going to dual spec into bear tank and kitty dps since at endgame collecting caster and physical DPS sets is just too much a pain in the arse. That and when a tank doesn’t show usually the first glance comes our way as a sub. All BearCat was good for in PvE was really the oh crap moments and in good guilds these are few and far between.

Maybe that is what I should be doing before MoP releases. Griefing people in arena with a rip, shift bear, win. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

My website was down for server upgrades at my host. Back up again now.

No new updates on the WoW Beta front because I have been playing Diablo 3 however since Diablo 3 lately has been such a disappointment (tired of spending so much time in AH filters to get the gear I need to play a Barb in Act 3 Inferno buying gear from mostly people that gamed the game early on) I plan on getting some more time in the MoP Beta under my belt especially since the max level was finally increased all the way to 90 (since the last time I was playing in the beta… which was a while ago.) Whew… yes I know… more periods.

I am pretty disappointed atm with Blizzard to be honest. Diablo 3 was a lot of fun at first but I have to agree that ilvl 63 rares should have some garanteed lowest level stats. Discovering an ilvl 63 and revealing it’s stats should be exciting and not what it is now which is the expectation (and typical realization) that the item is worthless. This should also hold true for ilvl 60, 61, 62, etc. If you are successful in reaching and being able to play in Inferno there should be at least a chance at a reward…. even in Act 1.

Also, I am really worried about when MoP is going to be released. Currently our guild is clearing Heroic DS in one night just to farm BiS gear (we are close to done) and Mounts (I would say 50% done). So I am playing WoW a Grand Total of 2 hours a week. Pretty sad. I am pretty sure this is going to drop to zero pretty soon (baring beta play) and can’t imagine the player loss that is going to occur if MoP is looking at a Dec release.

Any who, sorry to those that use this site as a resource as it was done for a little while. Should be up now again for a long time.

So our guild has Heroic DS on farm and we have shortened our raid week to 1 night until MoP.

Currently most of us are filling our time playing Diablo III.

I am having an absolute blast playing Diablo III. It is a lot of fun and I am enjoying it more than I expected. I just got my Barbarian to level 40 somewhere in Act II of Nightmare. Here are some tips…

Take your time in normal mode and see what Achievements you can get in each Act before moving forward. There is a lot to discover and you will miss it if you are trying to rush through to the end of the game. You can always look for it later in Nightmare but as things get increasingly difficult you might find yourself wishing you completed some stuff back on normal.

If you are a Barbarian you want Strength. Also, when things get tough you want a 1-H weapon that does awesome damage and a shield with a high chance to block that absorbs lots of damage… and has Strength.

Note the above tip, this might mean frequent visits to the AH. The Auction House is accessible from the Character Selection Screen. Although lots of Magic and Rare quality items fall while playing the AH will let you find items more appropriately itemized and with the precise searching you can definitely find something affordable that will make surviving a lot easier.

Get used to DEing both Blues and Rares though depending on what you need you might want to sell more of the early rares to vendors for gold. Good rares will sell on the AH but you are limited to 10 items on the AH at a time and you most likely are going to run short of space quickly. Good Rares sell on the AH if you don’t need them, bad rares just vendor or DE. Don’t forget to use some Rare and Magic items to gear your companions… all of them. You can use them as extended bank space doing this as well.

You won’t see Blacksmith or JC pages until nightmare… just an FYI.

Diablo III boss fights have strategy, they are not sit in one place and attack. I have found gear selection, companion selection, and running away while waiting for cooldowns works well.

The fastest way to die is to stand in X. Don’t stand in fire, poison, explosions, lasers, etc.

Once you get the Beta installed, if you are like me and want to dive right into questing you will first need to go to Pandaria. To do that you will need to find the Panda in your faction Capital City. The Panda should not be too tough to find in either city as he was placed in the most active area with a moonglow spotlight on him.

When asked, have him port you to Pandaria, there were a couple of different port options, but bottom line you need to end up in the Jade Forest and if you are horde make your way to the Northwestern top of the map, Alliance Southwest bottom of the map to find the starting quest areas. Horde is right above Hellscream’s Hope (Have the Panda port you there if it is an option still), Alliance is at the Wayward Landing (Also probably a port option).

I started out picking talents and a spec that sounded good for leveling. Talent choices really do have a feel for them based on play style so there really probably isn’t a better or worse option just one that fits how you like to level. If you like to grind on multiple mobs while questing you might pick different talents than if you prefer bypassing a lot of combat to get quests completed more quickly.

I knocked out a couple quests and even received my first reward, a two handed staff for either Boom or Kitty, neither of which was better than what I already had in inventory which is typical of every expansion since I raid… so nothing new on that front… except of course that the quest reward is custom so every class will get a useable item from that exact same quest without seeing like 8 possible rewards, just 2 based on which spec you want it for. A very welcome change and I am very happy Blizzard is finally looking at intelligent ways to reward loot.

Once it’s finished and I can get into play I will start posting and covering feral details. With this Beta extending to so many users I am sure there will be a lot of good information out there but I will make sure to put in my 2 cents… as usual.